I'm currently covering apps on sale at BundleHunt. A lot of
these are new to me, and the steep discounts make it a good time to fill
gaps in your Applications folder without paying full retail.
I've never understood why, given its resources, Apple still leaves
obvious friction points in macOS.
Take battery levels. Most of us are running Bluetooth
keyboards, mice, trackpads, and of course battery-powered laptops. Yet
macOS still makes you dig around System Settings to see what's about to
die. That feels like a solved problem.
Or window management in Mission Control. I use it
dozens of times a day to move windows between Spaces and displays. It's
powerful--but incomplete. There's no way to close a window directly from
that view. That omission is hard to justify when third-party developers
solved it years ago.
Then there's local music management. With subscription
fatigue and algorithmic sludge everywhere, more people are curating and
managing their own libraries again. Apple Music works fine for
streaming, but as an ID3 tag editor and metadata tool, it's clumsy at
best. Keeping album art and tags clean shouldn't feel like archaeology.
And finally, Font Book. It looks capable at first
glance. Spend five minutes using it seriously and you'll notice what's
missing: meaningful comparisons, smart organization, and
workflow-friendly tools.
The good news: each of these problems has a small, inexpensive fix
available right now on BundleHunt.
Batteries for Mac
Batteries for Mac
Batteries for Mac is $2
during the sale (normally $8.99). It shows battery levels for iPhones,
keyboards, mice (including third-party), MacBooks, and AirPods.
You can monitor everything from the menu bar or use its desktop widget
for a heads-up display. No digging through System Settings. If you've
ever had a keyboard die mid-sentence or a mouse quit during a screen
share, you know why this matters.
TuneTag
TuneTag
Stop fighting Apple Music for metadata control. For $0.50 (normally
$4.99), TuneTag
gives you a focused ID3 editor that does one job well.
It supports:
Direct metadata editing
Incrementing track numbers
File renaming based on custom patterns
Templates for consistent tagging
If you manage a local library--especially anything ripped, imported, or
sourced outside Apple's ecosystem--this saves time and frustration.
MIssion Control Plus
Mission Control Plus
Mission Control
Plus fills in the gaps Apple left. For $2.50 (normally $8.99), it
adds:
An X button to close windows directly inside Mission Control
Keyboard shortcuts for closing, minimizing, quitting, and more
If you live in Spaces, this turns Mission Control from a viewer into a
control surface. It's one of those small upgrades that compounds over
time.
Specimen
Specimen
For $2.50 (normally $29), Specimen is a serious upgrade over
Font Book.
It lets you:
Browse and organize fonts intelligently
Compare fonts side-by-side
Run font health checks
Preview variable fonts
Export PDF specimens
Generate developer-friendly font declarations in multiple formats
If you care about typography--whether for writing, web work, or client
projects--this feels like a professional tool rather than a system
afterthought.
None of these apps are flashy. They fix specific, practical annoyances.
That's exactly the kind of software I like to support--tools that
respect your time and improve real workflows instead of selling you
abstractions.
If you've been meaning to tighten up any of these areas in macOS, this
is a cheap way to do it.
Actually, I could have picked any Beatles song written after 1964, which, if yo are counting, was a whopping 62 years ago,I think we sometimes forget how far ahead of their times these lads were. Yes, they defined the era, but they also escaped it. They, we were together such a short time at such a young age.
Most Mac power users recognize Ryan Hanson's apps, even if they don't
know his name. Hanson's portfolio of Mac interface enhancements has
earned him a reputation as the editor in chief of the UI improvement
cohort. His apps are a staple of how I use my Mac. His most recognizable
work is Rectangle/Rectangle Pro, regarded by many as the pinnacle in Mac
window management.
Rectangle Pro Pro
Rectangle Pro / Rectangle
Rectangle Pro is the full-featured window manager
powerhouse, and Rectangle is the free open-source
version that many Mac users still recommend as a must-install tool for
arranging windows quickly.
Basic overview: free/OSS window snapping & keyboard control
for macOS. Pro adds workspace saving, multi-window
actions, custom shortcuts, and cursor-movement positioning.
What I like:
Powerful keyboard shortcuts for tiling and resizing windows -- faster than Mission Control.
Pro adds workspace macros and custom behaviors many pro users love.
A reliable, native-feeling alternative to paid tiling managers.
Charmstone is a spatial app switcher that lets you
launch and switch apps by pressing a modifier and moving your cursor in
a direction -- a fast alternative to Cmd+Tab or the dock.
What I Like:
Intuitive spatial app access once learned
Keeps your hands on keyboard+trackpad, reducing friction switching.
Superkey blends keyboard navigation with screen text
search: type what you see and click it -- all without the mouse. It also
includes built-in Hyperkey functionality
Hyperkey - A small, free tool that turns an unused key (often Caps Lock) into a combined modifier -- Control+Option+Command+Shift -- unlocking tons of shortcut potential. Free
Scroll - A simple scrolling utility that lets you scroll with one finger on Apple trackpads or tame overly sensitive Magic Mouse horizontal scroll. - $9.99
KeyLimePie - A keystroke visualizer that shows your shortcut presses -- handy for screencasts or demos. - $4.99
Space Capsule - A spatial organizer that puts macOS Spaces into a grid layout for faster navigation. - $9.99
Filebar - A fast file-path management bar -- ideal for editing/working with file paths without opening Finder. - $4.99
HighTop - A lightweight macOS file browser with tight integration -- great for quick access to local and cloud files. - Free
Hanson’s apps aren’t flashy. They don’t try to reinvent macOS. They
focus on one thing: removing friction from everyday interactions. What I
appreciate most is that these tools don't try to be ecosystems. They're
focused utilities. Lightweight. Native-feeling. Built around speed and
control. In a Mac ecosystem that increasingly pushes services and
subscriptions, it's refreshing to see software that just makes your
machine more responsive to your desires.
I'm currently covering apps currently on sale at BundleHunt . Many of
these are new to me and taking advantage of steep discounts provides
anyone interested a chance to add missing tools to their Applications.
The Mac ecosystem is currently awash in vibe-coded throwaway apps,
especially in categories like window managers, clipboard managers, and
dictation tools. The problem isn't just volume — it's durability. Many
of these apps come from inexperienced "developers" who can't
realistically maintain or evolve the software long-term. The result is
often a quick version 1.0 followed by silence.
That said, I'm not going to stop looking. Every now and then, a real gem
shows up — something built by people who clearly intend to keep
improving it. VibeSonic
is one of those apps that, despite its unfortunate name, deserves a
serious look.
I'm not a developer, and I'm definitely not a vibe coder. Sorting
through endless new releases can be exhausting. But VibeSonic stood out
because it tries to solve real workflow problems for technical users
rather than just wrapping AI in a shiny UI.
The app normally sells for $29.95 for a two-seat license with a year of
updates, but it is included in the current BundleHunt Sale
for just $3.
Why I Gave It a Shot
Since AI-assisted dictation became practical, I've experimented with
several tools — both free and paid. After spending time with the
excellent Mac Whisper, I eventually moved to Spokenly's free plan. More
recently, I've been testing VibeSonic to see whether its deeper
integrations and workflow features justify switching again.
Like most dictation apps, it's triggered with a hotkey and displays a
HUD while recording. One useful touch: you can insert custom AI
instructions at the start of dictation, which lets the model edit your
transcription according to predefined rules without extra cleanup later.
Features That Actually Matter
Privacy-first transcription
VibeSonic runs powerful models like Whisper and Parakeet locally, so you
don't need a subscription just to get high-quality transcription. More
importantly, your dictation stays on your Mac. For anyone who regularly
dictates sensitive notes or drafts, this alone is a strong argument in
its favor.
Works Anywhere You Can type
If an app supports a cursor, VibeSonic works there. It also supports
voice-activated snippets, which means you can trigger text expansions
while dictating — a small detail that turns out to be a major
productivity win if you already rely on snippets in your workflow.
Notes And Reusable prompts
You can insert predefined notes or prompts into your transcription. This
is handy for recurring writing contexts: canned responses, project
notes, recurring disclaimers, or setup blocks you normally paste
manually.
AI-assisted Research (with limits)
Research features rely on the Perplexity model. If you choose to enable
it, you can perform lightweight web research directly during dictation —
useful for quick bug explanations or technical references without
breaking your flow. There's an optional "Include Sources" setting if you
want citations included in the output.
Agentic Assistance mid-workflow
You can invoke a voice-activated assistant while dictating to ask
questions or request explanations without stopping to switch apps. Used
sparingly, this feels less like a gimmick and more like having a
technical coworker quietly standing nearby.
Built For Technical users
This is where VibeSonic differentiates itself. It supports native file
path detection and project mapping designed for code-centric workflows.
You can dictate paths naturally and ask the assistant for coding
examples, debugging help, or explanations directly inside your
transcription.
Multi-language support
It supports dozens of languages for transcription and translation, which
broadens its usefulness beyond English-only workflows.
The Real Advantage: Context and Style Control
One of VibeSonic's more interesting ideas is persistent notes that the
AI uses as background context while editing your text. You can define
instructions like:
avoid SEO-style writing
skip clickbait phrasing
target experienced technical users
prioritize tools you already use in your workflow
That last one is quietly powerful. Instead of explaining your ecosystem
every time, you can teach the app once and let it adapt.
Most of us write in multiple modes throughout the day — business email,
personal messages, blog posts, Reddit replies, quick notes. VibeSonic
lets you define writing styles for each context so the output adapts
automatically. Done well, this reduces the friction between dictating
quickly and sounding like yourself afterward.
Where It Fits (and Where It Doesn't)
VibeSonic isn't magic. If you just want simple transcription, lighter
tools may be enough. But if your work involves technical writing,
coding, or switching contexts frequently, the app starts to make sense
because it combines dictation, editing rules, and contextual AI
assistance in one place.
The biggest compliment I can give it: it feels built around real
workflows rather than marketing copy.
What’s a lyric that resonates deeply with you and why?
This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie
In a time where the right wing insists that the only real America is one created by and for white Christians, I am reminded of the wise words of one of my personal heroes, Woody Guthrie, that the real America is one that belongs to all of us, no matter our color or creed...or party affiliation, or legal status or gender identity.
I’m currently covering apps on sale at BundleHunt. Many of
these are new to me, and steep discounts are a good excuse to try tools
you might otherwise ignore — or to fill gaps in a workflow you didn’t
realize had gaps.
First up is Fluent, an
AI-powered writing assistant that handles translation, grammar,
spelling, and style suggestions. The app I’ve been using for the past
year for similar tasks is Rewrite
Bar. They aren’t clones, but they definitely live in the same
neighborhood.
Features in Common With Rewrite Bar
Both apps are aimed at people who don’t want to keep copy-pasting text
into a ChatGPT window every five minutes.
Works in any app — email, browser fields, notes, and pretty much anywhere you can type
Hotkey-driven — minimal UI interruption
BYOK — bring your own API key if you want control over costs and models
Local model support — privacy-friendly options
Custom actions and prompts — designed with power users in mind
Rewrite Bar feels exactly like what it is: a tool. You
invoke it, issue a command, review the result, and move on. The workflow
is linear and quickly becomes muscle memory. It stays out of your way.
It supports session history, versioning, and some iterative editing in
its review window. If you don’t want to manage API keys or models,
Rewrite Bar also offers a subscription that includes model access.
A lifetime license is $29 if
you bring your own model, and it includes 35K AI credits to get
started.
Fluid Palette
Translate, Magic Refine, Fix Grammar, Make Concise Summarize,
Paraphrase Text, Explain Like I'm 5, Continue Writing
Fluent, by contrast, presents a smart panel you
interact with directly. That panel can stay persistent or disappear
depending on your preference. The experience feels less like firing off
commands and more like working alongside an assistant. Fluent is
context-aware, supports back-and-forth conversation, and allows chaining
actions together into something closer to a workflow than a single
command.
Fluent also includes RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). In plain
terms, that means the model doesn’t rely only on its training data — it
can reference files you provide to generate responses. You can organize
these files into areas like projects, emails, or a catch-all bucket for
your writing style. In practice, that means it can use past examples as
context rather than guessing blindly. If you’re writing a billing
summary, for example, it can reference previous invoices to match tone
and structure.
Everything you add to Fluent stays on your Mac. Nothing is stored in the
cloud. The output quality largely depends on the quality of the material
you feed it — garbage in, garbage out still applies.
It’s worth clarifying what Fluent is not. This isn’t a local,
continually learning replacement for ChatGPT. It isn’t training a model
on your data or improving itself over time. It simply retrieves relevant
information from your files and uses it as context for each request.
There’s a broader pattern worth noticing here: AI writing tools are
starting to split into two camps. One camp gives you fast, one-shot
utilities that stay invisible until needed. The other tries to become a
persistent collaborator that remembers context and rides along with your
workflow. Which one fits depends less on features and more on how you
actually write — quick surgical edits versus ongoing conversation with
your tools.
A song from a genre you didn’t think you’d like—what changed?
Bring the Noise by Public Enemy
As a dumb southern kid with an "us vs. them" mentality I avoided what we then called "rap music" because it wasn't the rock and roll my radio station played. When I eventually grew up, opened my mid a wee bit and started to seek things outside of the world of white male privilege, I began to appreciate the poetry and political intent of Public Enemy. This was the tune that opened my eyes.
The first BundleHunt
sale of 2026 kicked off today. This round is focused entirely on
lifetime licenses - no one-year subscriptions or short-term trials
disguised as deals. Update eligibility for major or minor releases still
varies by app, so always check the fine print before buying.⌘
In tech, big names rise fast and disappear just as quickly. When a
company sticks around for well over a decade, there's usually a reason.
BundleHunt has been doing its thing since 2010, offering a different
twist on software bundles: you build your own. That means you're not
forced into buying 30 apps just to get the three you actually want.⌘
Over the years, they've built a decent reputation for fixing problems
when a purchase doesn't work out, and I've picked up a few solid tools
there myself - including Keyboard Maestro, Mountain Duck, and Downie.
The catalog always includes lesser-known apps too, which is both fun and
dangerous. Affordable software has a way of convincing you that you
suddenly need something you'll never open again. Discipline
required.
Apps I Can Personally Vouch For
These aren't just random listings - they're legitimate contenders in
their categories.
TextSniper is one of
those deceptively simple utilities that ends up becoming part of your
daily workflow. It's an OCR tool that lets you grab text from almost
anywhere: videos, PDFs, presentations, screenshots, online courses -
basically anything visible on your screen.⌘
Draw a box around the text and it captures it. Rotation, odd angles, and
shadows usually aren't a problem. There's a handy option to remove line
breaks automatically, and an additive clipboard mode that makes
multi-step capture painless.
Real-world use case: grabbing command output from a video tutorial or
copying text from an app that inexplicably doesn't allow selection.
MacPilot is a system-tweaking utility with an almost absurd number of
options - over 1,100 tweaks at last count. Think of it as a centralized
control panel for settings Apple hides or spreads across plist files and
command-line flags.
A few examples of what it can do:
Calendar: change default event duration
Dock: enable single-app mode or window previews
Finder: enable "Quit Finder"
Launchpad: reset layout and control rows/columns
Music: enable half-star ratings
QuickTime: remember open movies on quit
Safari: restore backspace navigation
Screen Capture: change default file type
Spotlight: rebuild index
Terminal: focus follows mouse
Time Machine: disable automatic backup prompts
Power users will appreciate having everything in one place instead of
hunting down obscure terminal commands.
Lingon Pro has been around for more than two decades, which is
practically geological time in Mac utility years. It remains one of the
best GUI front-ends for launchd - the scheduling and background-task
system built into macOS.
You can create jobs that run:
whether your Mac is awake or asleep
whether you're logged in or not
with elevated privileges when needed
using keep-alive rules to restart failed tasks automatically
If you run scripts, backups, or maintenance tasks behind the scenes and
don't want to babysit cron files or plist syntax, this is one of the
cleanest ways to do it.
Infinidesk tries to solve desktop clutter by letting you create multiple
desktop environments, each with its own files, folders, and wallpaper.
Two modes stand out:
Classic Mode - one project-focused desktop across all Spaces
Follow Spaces Mode - desktop contents change automatically as you switch Spaces in Mission Control
If your Mac desktop becomes a dumping ground by noon every day, this
could be a surprisingly practical way to enforce structure without
changing your habits.
Rocket Typist has developed a loyal following fast. It's a text
expansion and snippet manager that regularly comes up in discussions
alongside TextExpander and Typinator - usually because it adds a few
modern touches those veterans don't emphasize.
Highlights include:
folders for organizing snippets
support for plain text, rich text, code, images, and AI-generated snippets
strong search and filtering for large libraries
If you live in repetitive text - support emails, documentation, or code
templates - tools like this pay for themselves quickly.
Bundle sales live in that weird intersection between smart bargain
hunting and impulsive software hoarding. The build-your-own model helps
keep things sane, but the temptation to pick up "just one more app" is
very real. Some might say it's an addiction.⌘
The practical approach: start with a specific workflow problem you're
trying to solve. If an app clearly fits that need - great. If not, leave
it in the cart and walk away. Your future self will thank you.⌘And if you're the kind of Mac user who enjoys experimenting without
committing to subscriptions, this is one of the cleaner opportunities to
stock up without the recurring-cost hangover.
How do you discover new music, and what’s the latest gem you’ve found?
I will admit that I am much more comfortable with music I know and love than I am with 'kids these days" tunes, but I do occasionally find new to me stuff through Apple Music playlists and Crucial Tracks, of course,
What is a song that feels like home to you? - Carolina in My Mind
If you come from where I come from, this is the mandatory answer. I am lucky enough to have seen JT perform this song live just a few miles from where he grew up in Chapel Hill, NC where his Dad worked at the medical school. He wrote it in his early 20s, shortly after being signed to The Beatles label, Apple Records. He was on vacation in Spain, feeling homesick, he says.
The Result
As an App Addict, I enjoy testing new tools and watching indie developers invent clever ways to get things done. But collecting apps isn't the goal. The real satisfaction comes when those tools solve an actual problem.
Here’s a recent workflow I built using apps I’ve reviewed on this blog.
The Problem
I spend a fair amount of time in r/MacApps, on Mastodon, and in email threads talking software with other nerds. I’ve reviewed hundreds of apps, and I’m often asked for links to older posts.
Offline, I can search the Markdown files locally. But those files don’t include the public URLs. If someone asks for a link, I still have to go hunting.
On top of that, my blog tags are too broad to be genuinely helpful when I’m trying to surface something specific.
The friction wasn’t huge – but it was constant.
The Goal
I wanted two things:
A fully searchable offline index of all 469 reviews -- including their public URLs
An online, full-text--searchable index of the entire site without manually building one
No CMS rebuild. No new publishing platform. Just better infrastructure using tools I already trust.
The Tools
Integrity -- A free crawler that can extract every URL on a domain when configured correctly
A CSV editor like Delimited, Easy CSV, or (if you must) Excel or Google Sheets
The script converts the CSV into a Safari-compatible bookmarks file. Simple transformation, clean output.
4. Import into Raindrop.io
In Raindrop, I chose Import Bookmarks – not “Import File.”
That distinction matters. The bookmarks import preserves structure correctly.
Raindrop then pulled in every post.
5. Import into EagleFiler
In EagleFiler, I selected:
File → Import Bookmarks
EagleFiler fetched each URL and created a local web archive for every post.
No manual downloading. No copy/paste gymnastics.
The Result
Raindrop.io
Raindrop created a collection containing every post on my site.
Because it performs full-text indexing, searches aren’t limited to titles. I can search for an obscure phrase buried deep in an article and still surface the right post.
It also stores a permanent copy of each page. If my hosting provider disappears tomorrow, I still have an offsite archive.
EagleFiler
EagleFiler downloaded and archived every URL as a standalone web archive file.
A web archive is a single file containing the full page – text, images, links, styling. It’s searchable, portable, and completely offline.
Now I have:
Full-text search online (Raindrop)
Full-text search offline (EagleFiler)
Public URLs attached to every entry
Redundant archival copies
No rebuild. No database export. No new platform.
Just composable tools behaving like infrastructure.
Why Not Just…
…Use My CMS Search?
CMS search works until it doesn’t.
It requires being online, depends on whatever indexing logic your platform uses, and doesn’t give you a portable dataset you control.
I wanted something I could manipulate, migrate, or repurpose independently of my hosting stack.
…Search the Markdown Files Directly?
I can – and I do.
But Markdown files don’t include the canonical public URL. When someone asks for a link, I need that immediately.
This workflow preserves the published URLs alongside searchable content.
…Export the Database?
That’s fine if you’re running WordPress.
I’m not. And even if I were, a database dump is not a clean, portable, human-friendly index. It’s raw tables.
I wanted something that integrates with tools I already use daily.
…Use a Browser Bookmark Export?
That only captures what I’ve manually bookmarked.
I wanted a complete, authoritative list of everything published – no gaps and no reliance on memory.
Integrity gives me the ground truth.
…Install a Static Site Search Tool?
Client-side search libraries are great for readers.
This wasn’t about improving the reader experience. It was about fixing my own workflow across online search, offline access, and long-term archiving.
No new stack. No fragile automation. Just small tools composed intentionally.
The broader lesson here is simple: sometimes the right move isn’t adopting something bigger. It’s wiring together boring, reliable utilities until they quietly become infrastructure.
The power structure in America has a deep investment in keeping people afraid and begging for protection. We accept that roughly half our federal budget disappears into military-related spending or the interest on debts from previous wars. It’s branded as “defense” spending, as if we live in a constant state of imminent invasion and must outspend the rest of the planet just to sleep at night. When we actually do go to war—like in Iraq and Afghanistan—we rack up debts our grandchildren will still be paying off, with little to show for it besides flag-draped coffins and new veterans’ hospitals.
At home, we tolerate police forces that look and act more like occupying armies. Officers enjoy near immunity for taking civilian lives, especially minority lives. All it takes is the phrase “I feared for my life,” and the system usually nods and moves on. We build prisons with money that could have gone to schools. Politicians—these days mostly Republicans—inflate crime statistics to scare voters, then gut social services to hire more cops and fill more cells.
Fear drives our everyday decisions, too. Americans buy gas-guzzling SUVs because they’ve been convinced smaller cars are death traps. The home alarm industry thrives on selling expensive, easily defeated systems to people who imagine burglars lurking behind every hedgerow. We throw away perfectly good food because a date stamped on a can spooked us. Entire communities now reject vaccines, not because of evidence, but because someone on the internet whispered “poison.”
The formula is simple: the more frightened we are, the more heroic the ruling class gets to look when they promise to save us. Fear justifies bigger police budgets, bigger military budgets, and bigger contracts for the same companies that conveniently fund the next election cycle. It’s a tidy loop—terror in, profits out.
This culture leaks into workplaces as well. Millions of Americans live one bad quarter away from an arbitrary layoff. In non-union jobs, due process barely exists. People hesitate to make decisions because they’re afraid of “getting in trouble.” Entire office cultures revolve around cover-your-ass rituals that protect managers while doing nothing to help customers, coworkers, or the actual mission.
Conservative politics feeds on this anxiety. Those who already have the most—white, Christian, comfortable Americans—are told their way of life is under siege by everyone who doesn’t look or pray like them. Immigrants who pick our food, build our homes, and keep factories running are recast as criminals and freeloaders. It’s easier to blame the guy fixing the roof than the guy who owns the building.
I’m tired of it. I’ve felt real fear—the kind that hits when you genuinely believe someone might hurt you. It’s humiliating and unforgettable, and it can rearrange your life in minutes. After experiencing that, I decided fear would not become my identity. I’m not afraid of immigrants, or terrorists, or imaginary crime waves, or losing a job because I didn’t ask permission to breathe. I refuse to organize my life around panic. I choose to believe we can solve problems with something other than cruise missiles, more prisons, and fewer rights.
The ruling class should be careful. Scare tactics work for a while, but history is clear about how these stories end. Societies pushed too far eventually push back. When people realize they’ve been kept in a constant state of manufactured dread, the reckoning is rarely polite. A country that lives on fear eventually wakes up angry—and angry nations don’t stay quiet for long.
This is a reworked piece from a couple of years ago, prompted by the current expansion of the police state in the US.
One of My Extra Bar Layouts
Since I installed Extra Bar on New Year's Eve, I have been systematically going through my automation apps, like RaycastKeyboard Maestro, Better Touch Tool, Hazel, and Apple Shortcuts to organize and consolidate the different ways I use them, since there is now a well thought out menu bar access application that can harness the power of all of them in an effective way. The developers of ExtraBar have been very responsive to feature requests from its user base, and a few recently added features are real game changers, particularly one that came out yesterday which allows you to create a menu item for anything on your computer that uses a global keyboard shortcut. You no longer have to find the deep link for the action you want to summon from extra bar.
If you have ever used an Elgato Stream Deck, the Extra Bar developers have basically created an application that mimics that, running in a space on your Mac where you can always access it.
Here’s a list of some of the things I currently can do from Extra Bar:
Batch launch all my applications in groups depending on the task at hand: writing, backup, software testing etc.
Open a new Finder window anywhere at any time by clicking a single function key.
Close all notifications in the Notification Center at one time.
Mark all unread mail in my Mail app as read
Mount network drives from my self-hosted server and unmount them.
Quit all open applications.
Run a Keyboard Maestro macro that allows me to pick from a list of any running application, including background applications, and restart it.
Restart the Finder with a hotkey
Toggle my desktop widgets hidden/shown
Search for Keyboard Maestro macros by name.
Activate the CleanShot X options for capturing a window, an area, running OCR on a screenshot, showing the history of my last ten screenshots, or using the all-in-one tool.
I'm currently running a system with three displays and twelve virtual desktops, and I have a folder in ExtraBar with a shortcut to each one.
Upload the image on my clipboard to OpenAI and have it return an alt text description I can use when posting to social media.
Automatically add today's weather and today's calendar events to my daily note in Obsidian.
Launch Activity Monitor.
Open Control Center.
Empty the trash.
Restart the keyboard maestro engine.
Restart my Menu Bar Manager.
Systematically close all applications, eject all network mounts and attached disks, and log out.
Restart my computer.
Access the bookmarks, history, open tabs, and settings for my browser.
Quickly add a task or project to my task manager and access the views I most commonly look at.
Automounter
I recently discovered an interesting utility called Automounter over at the always-useful Mac Menu Bar website. As the name suggests, Automounter connects you to network volumes automatically. That's handy for home-lab tinkerers and absolutely essential in many enterprise setups.
Automounter supports five protocols:
SMB
WebDAV
AFP
FTP (read-only)
NFS
In my testing, I mounted shares from just about everything I had lying around: a Debian 11 server, a Windows 11 workstation, an Unraid server, another Mac, and two WebDAV cloud services–Koofr and Kdrive. It handled all of them without complaint.
Automounter has a set of features that make it far more useful than a simple shell script or manually connecting through Finder:
Multiple Servers -- There's no limit on the number of shares or servers you can connect to. You can even create multiple connection profiles for the same server if you need different shares mounted under different conditions.
Mount Rules -- This is the killer feature. You can create rules that determine when a share should mount based on conditions such as Wi-Fi network name, running applications, VPN status, time of day, the presence of other volumes, and more.
Wake on LAN -- Exactly what it sounds like: Automounter can wake a sleeping server and then mount its shares automatically.
Mount Options -- Connect as a guest or authenticated user, and optionally hide mounted volumes from Finder. That last option is especially useful in education or managed enterprise environments.
Server Discovery -- Setup is refreshingly painless. You manually mount the shares you want Automounter to manage, and the app detects them automatically. It imports all the necessary connection details into profiles, which you can then edit--renaming shares to something that actually makes sense to you.
Rule Status -- If a share isn't mounted, Automounter will tell you exactly which condition isn't being met. No more guessing why a drive didn't connect.
Files, Apps, and Scripts -- Automation fans will love this. Automounter can launch apps, open files, or run scripts when a share mounts. You can trigger backups, fire off Hazel rules, or pass runtime variables (like the current share path) directly into script arguments.
Configuration Profiles -- For enterprise and education users, Automounter supports managed profiles that can be deployed to multiple machines and locked down to prevent user changes.
Years ago, I traveled between 20-plus sites, each with one or more Mac servers and multiple network shares. Keeping track of IP addresses, credentials, and share names was a constant headache. Automounter would have saved me an absurd amount of time and frustration.
In my current home-lab setup, it solves a different but equally real problem. Automounter reconnects my shares automatically when I switch Wi-Fi networks or reboot a server. Backup jobs that rely on network storage are suddenly effortless instead of fragile. It quietly removes a whole category of annoyances.
You can find more details on the developer’s website, where you can purchase the app and an optional helper utility required for some advanced features. It’s also available in the Mac App Store. The base app is $9.99, and the pro features (mainly the rules engine) are a $3.99 in-app purchase.
For anyone who deals with network shares on a regular basis–at home or at work–Automounter is one of those small utilities that will soon be indispensable.
I’m a technology enthusiast, not a business analyst, so I’m not the right person to predict what all the money pouring into AI is going to do to the economy. I consider myself an environmentalist, but I’m also skeptical that every scary headline about AI data centers and energy consumption is entirely free of Luddite panic. I don’t love some of the content AI produces, and I understand why people call it a plagiarism machine for the way it borrows from the work of others without credit.
My own relationship with AI started pretty simply. I began paying for Google Gemini in 2024, and when I finally de-Googled last year, I moved over to ChatGPT. This has been my first year of retirement, and I spend most days at home writing and teaching myself the technologies I never had time to dig into while I was still working. I built a self-hosted server. Then I built a better one. AI ended up helping me constantly with configuration files, scripting, and general Linux best practices. For months, that was almost all I used it for.
As I’ve gotten more comfortable managing my setup, I’ve needed fewer basic operating-system answers. That’s pushed me to explore other ways to use large language models—things that play more to their strengths. Here are a few that surprised me.
Nutrition
I’m diabetic and my wife has celiac disease. We wanted to follow the Mediterranean Diet for health reasons, but finding something that fit both of us felt overwhelming. I asked ChatGPT to create a meal plan that accounted for our restrictions while still sticking to the spirit of that way of eating. It produced a menu that actually made sense, and then generated a shopping list I could take straight to the grocery store. That’s not earth-shattering technology, but it was genuinely useful.
Twelve Years of Crud
I’ve used Migration Assistant on every Mac I’ve owned since 2014. That means my keychain still had passwords for Wi-Fi networks that haven’t existed in years. My shell configuration file had become a digital junk drawer filled with leftovers from every command-line utility I ever experimented with. My PATH statement was longer than my last will and testament.
With ChatGPT’s help, I methodically cleaned out a lot of that accumulated cruft. It helped me identify obsolete entries, simplify scripts, and generally untangle years of well-intentioned mess. A few persistent little bugs disappeared along the way. That alone made the subscription worth it.
Creating a Reference Library
After a few months of leaning on AI to solve real problems, I realized something embarrassing: I hadn’t taken good notes. I’d solved issues, found clever scripts, and learned useful tricks—but I hadn’t organized any of it in a way I could easily find again.
I downloaded transcripts of all my conversations with ChatGPT and fed them back into it to build an index. From there I converted everything to Markdown and dropped it into my Obsidian vault. The AI helped generate tags and backlinks so the notes connected to each other. Now, when I need some obscure command or script, I can actually locate it instead of trying to remember which rabbit hole I went down six months ago.
Task Management Redesign
I’ve borrowed ideas from David Allen’s Getting Things Done system for years because the basics are solid. When I think of something I need to do, I write it down immediately. I do periodic reviews. I try to organize tasks by context. But I’m not a GTD purist, and I don’t want to live a life ruled by checklists.
I use Things 3 as my task manager, and over time it had quietly turned into a disaster. I had abandoned projects that kept accumulating tasks, overlapping tags, and—somehow—duplicate folder structures that I kept maintaining out of habit even though they made no sense.
Eventually I dumped the whole mess into ChatGPT. I listed my tags, areas, projects, and all the quirks of my broken system. It came back with a simplified structure: six clear areas, a couple dozen sensible tags, and practical guidelines for deciding when something should be a real project instead of just a task with a checklist. It even walked me through setting up an integration with Apple Reminders and Siri so I could add tasks by voice—something I’d always meant to do but never made time for.
Conclusion
ChatGPT is far from perfect. When I ask about software, it often relies on outdated information and gives instructions that don’t quite match the current version. Sometimes it veers off into ridiculous territory, like suggesting I could use a phone app to control a remote Mac in ways that clearly aren’t possible. It can get weirdly self-referential and sound like it’s pretending to have lived human experiences. And even as an editor, it occasionally suggests changes that miss the mark.
But despite all of that, it has saved me an enormous amount of time and solved problems that used to take hours of research and trial and error. I see it as the next logical step in the evolution of everyday computing, not the end of civilization. It’s just another tool—one I use with a healthy dose of skepticism, the same way I’ve always treated tech-forum advice from someone named bIgwORm007 confidently explaining how to overclock a CPU with “facts” that may or may not be entirely imaginary.
It's always a good day to listen to The Bottle Rockets. This song is pure poetry in the style of the early 60s Dylan and Phil Ochs. Hell, maybe even Woody Guthrie.
Early in my career, I used to get annoyed when the old hands would wave away every automation problem with, “Just make a cron job.”
Cron dates back to the earliest days of Unix. It’s simple, dumb, and dependable: once a minute it checks a text file, and if a line in that file matches the current time, it runs the associated command. Like most Unix tools, it works great–once you learn the arcane scheduling syntax.
For example:
0 3 * * * /Users/amerpie/scripts/backup.sh
To cron, that means: run this script every day at 3:00 AM.**
Cron was designed for machines that live in server rooms–powered on 24/7, connected to stable networks, and rarely put to sleep.
macOS laptops are… not that.
The core problem is that cron has zero situational awareness. It doesn’t know or care whether:
you're logged in
the network is available
the laptop is asleep
macOS has changed anything since 1993
modern features like sandboxing, power-saving modes, or System Integrity Protection exist
Cron just runs on schedule. If your Mac is asleep at 3:00 AM, tough luck. That limitation makes cron a poor fit for most real-world Mac automation.
That's Why We Have launchd
Apple introduced launchd over 20 years ago with OS X 10.4 (Tiger) to replace cron and a pile of other legacy services.
Unlike cron, launchd actually understands the modern Mac environment. It can handle:
starting and stopping apps
running background tasks
scheduling jobs
managing daemons
responding to system events
Most importantly, launchd isn’t limited to “run at this time.” It can trigger jobs based on state and context, including:
specific times or intervals
system boot
user login
file or folder changes
network availability
hardware events
on-demand conditions
In other words, launchd is designed for the messy, mobile, power-managed world Macs actually live in.
There’s just one big catch.
You don’t create launchd jobs with a simple line of text. Instead, you have to write XML property list files–verbose, picky, easy to mess up, and filled with cryptic keys you’re expected to understand.
For most sane people, that’s a hard pass.
Useful Third-Party Apps That Make This Easy
Fortunately, it’s 2026, and no one needs to hand-craft launchd XML files anymore. Several excellent Mac apps provide friendly interfaces for building launchd jobs or similar scheduled tasks.
Keyboard Maestro isn’t primarily a scheduler–but it does include powerful time-based and event-based triggers.
Some of the available triggers:
Hot keys
App launch / quit / activate / deactivate
Window events
Clipboard changes
Specific times or intervals
Typed strings
USB device events
Public web URLs
MIDI input
Device connection/disconnection
Login
Network changes
The downside: Keyboard Maestro only works when:
you're logged in
the Mac is awake
the Keyboard Maestro Engine is running
So it’s not a replacement for launchd. But for user-level automation, it’s incredibly powerful.
For example, I have a macro that periodically checks whether Raycast, Hazel, Stream Deck, and BetterTouchTool are running–and restarts them if they’re not. That’s the kind of practical glue automation Keyboard Maestro excels at.
Apple Shortcuts
Shortcuts on macOS has matured a lot, especially since macOS Tahoe. It now supports time-based automations similar to what iOS users have had for years.
But there are important limitations:
You must be logged in
The Mac must be awake
It's better suited to workflows than true background services
Still, Shortcuts can trigger actions based on:
specific apps
power conditions
hardware connections
network changes
file system events
Bluetooth devices
time of day
If you have an always-on Mac mini or studio, Shortcuts can be surprisingly capable. On a sleeping laptop, not so much.
More Apps with Time-Based or Event Triggers
If you just need “run this thing on a schedule” without diving into launchd, these are worth a look:
Task Till Dawn -- Free automation tool for file management, printing, and browser tasks
Alarm Clock Pro -- Far more than an alarm clock; great for scheduled app launching and scripts
Shortery -- Adds real triggers to Apple Shortcuts (Wi-Fi, calendar, time, etc.)
Automator + Calendar Alerts -- Built-in macOS trick: create an Automator workflow, then have Calendar open it at a specific time
Launch Control -- A high-end launchd GUI similar to Lingon Pro, but pricier
Bottom Line
If you’re automating a real Mac–not a headless server, cron is usually the wrong tool.
For anything that needs to run reliably in the background, use launchd. And unless you genuinely enjoy editing XML by hand, use a GUI tool like Lingon Pro or LaunchD Task Scheduler to manage it.
For user-level automations while you’re actively working, Keyboard Maestro and Shortcuts are fantastic.
Pick the right tool for the job, and your automations will actually work when you need them–rather than silently failing at 3:00 AM while your Mac sleeps peacefully on the nightstand.
"The Four Seasons - Violin Concerto, Op. 8, No. 4, RV 279 - "Winter": II. Largo (Transcribed for Cello)" by Ton Koopman, Yo-Yo Ma & Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
What’s a song that helps you focus or concentrate?
I'm probably not smart enough to truly appreciate classical music, but I do recognize Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. I've been listening to it regularly since my kids were little. They all love it too.
